Gamifying emotional labor: A human-centered framework for sustainable workplace emotional intelligence development through interactive learning systems

This study presents a theoretically-grounded gamification framework designed to address the critical challenge of maintaining emotional labor at sustainable levels within organizational contexts. The research introduces a comprehensive approach that integrates emotional intelligence development with interactive learning methodologies, specifically targeting the enhancement of empathy, communication culture, and collaborative feedback processes among employees and managers. Through the implementation of the “Emotional Journey Mapping with Emotion Cards” game system, this framework addresses three distinct player types: philanthropic, social, and questioning personalities. The methodology employs both intrinsic and extrinsic reward mechanisms while incorporating assessment tools to measure behavioral transformation and skill acquisition. Importantly, this framework represents a conceptual design proposal synthesized from existing empirical literature rather than a tested intervention. Based on meta-analytic evidence from similar interventions in the literature, this framework hypothesizes potential improvements of 10-40% in team collaboration, employee engagement, and conflict resolution effectiveness, pending empirical validation through controlled implementation studies. The study concludes that gamified approaches to emotional labor management offer significant potential for contributing to organizational wellbeing while maintaining productivity standards. Key limitations include the absence of empirical validation and dependency on organizational commitment for successful implementation. Future research should prioritize controlled implementation studies to validate the framework’s effectiveness across diverse organizational contexts. This research contributes to the growing body of literature on workplace emotional intelligence and provides practical implications for human resource management practices.